Voice and Piano

My Shakespeare songs draw their texts from five of the poet’s famous love sonnets. A thread that connects all of these texts is sadness over the loss of a loved one who is far away, and that was my state of mind when I wrote them. They were first performed by baritone Philip Frohnmayer and pianist Logan Skelton. The recordings of the second and fourth songs here were made by baritone Charles Wesley Evans and pianist Amir Khosrowpour.

1. Those lines that I before have writ do lie
2. My love is strength’ned though more weak in seeming
3. How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st
4. No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change
5. Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Songs of Passage, Book II, focuses on life’s most imponderable journeys, beginning with Walt Whitman’s great meditation on the passage from life into death, “The Last Invocation.” “The Old Face,” with a text adapted from Whitman, pictures an old woman sitting quietly in the sun, her face “clearer and more beautiful than the sky.”Robert Louis Stevenson’s allegorical poem, “Know You the River,” continues the theme of late-in-life passages, with its hope that love, even in the face of loss, may “Go on from grace to grace.” Philip Frohmayer’s “Walking,” describeswith courage and withis own physical passage through the streets of New Orleans, knowing his body bears a life-ending cancer. Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “Crossing the Bar,” late in life, after recovery from a dangerous illness. Like Whitman in “The Last Invocation,” he yearns for a calm passage: “…may there be no moaning of the bar / When I put out to sea.”

1. “The Last Invocation” (Whitman)—A moving setting of Walt Whitman’s lyric reflections on love and loss.
2. “The Old Face” (Whitman)—A setting of Whitman’s text, gently adapted, in memoriam for Lois Bentivegna.
3. “Know You the River” (Stephenson)—A gentle setting of Stephenson’s endearing lyric celebrating love and the passages of life.
4. “Walking” (Frohnmayer)—An intimate setting of Philip Frohnmayer’s ruminations about living with cancer.
5. “Crossing the Bar” (Tennyson)—A sensitive setting of the poet’s reflection after recovery from a serious illness. Tennyson stipulated that this poem be printed last in every edition of his collected works.

Songs of Remembrance explores the realm of memory, regret, and loss. The set opens with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s solemn “Autumn Within,” a recollection of spring from the vantage point of autumn: “Youth and spring are all about; / It is I that have grown old.” Longfellow’s “Something Left Undone” recounts howthe accumulation of small failures eventually burdens us with unbearable regret, “Heavy as the weight of dreams.” In “Remnant People in a Remnant Land,” Georgia poet Janisse Ray’s remarkable fantasy, “Remnant People in a Remnant Land,”springs from the notion that“A barn longs for the trees it was, history of forest, years circling in wood.” Alfred Lord Tennyson dedicated a great cycle of poems to the memory of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. From these I have set “Dark house, by which once more I stand,” and “A happy lover who has come,”both filled with the sadness of recollection after a great loss.

1. “Autumn Within” (Longfellow)—This melancholy song is a setting of one of Longfellow’s most reflective texts, shadowed by the memories of former times.
2. “Something Left Undone” (Longfellow)—This subtly disturbing lyric traces the seemingly trivial omissions of everyday life through to the tragic consequence of a life unfulfilled.
3. “Remnant People in a Remnant Land” (Janisse Ray)—Georgia poet Janisse Ray’s fantasy about how the boards in a barn remember the trees that they once were.
4. “Dark House” (Tennyson)—Tennyson’s desolate reflections of the emptiness of loss.
5. “The Flower” (Tennyson)—This deeply nostalgic song sets one of Tennyson’s most deeply felt and emotive lyric poems.

Songs of Passage, Book I, takes its name from the title of the first song in the book, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Birds of Passage.” The image of words, like great, migrating birds, flying high overhead put me in mind of how much of our lives are spent “in passage.” Longfellow’s poem is about the passage of words into language—“Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,” that throng about us continually. Robert Louis Sevenson’s “I Who Was Young” considers the passage beyond the self-assurance of youth,“And I own that I was wrong—” capturing the pang of regret in a single line. “White in the Moon” is A.E. Housman’s reflection on our despair when our passages lead us away from love. Houseman’s “We’ll to the woods no more” speaks of sad acceptance that the passages we once loved are forever closed. Love is also the theme of the last song, Sidney Lanier’s “Sail Fast,” but here the mood swings. The “Ark of my Hope” will “Sweep lordly o’er the drownéd Past,” toward brighter times. With the flight of Lanier’s “grey and sober dove,” images of birds in winged passage both open and close the set.

1. “Birds of Passage” (Longfellow)—A striking setting of one of Longfellow’s most beguiling poems.
2. “I Who Was Young” (Stevenson)—A gentle setting of Stevenson’s lament over lost youth.
3. “White in the Moon” (Housman)—A haunting setting of Housman’s melancholy lyric poem.
4. “We’ll to the Woods” (Hausman)—A gentle setting of Housman’s lyric poem of grief and loss.
5. “Sail Fast” (Lanier)—A thrilling setting of Lanier’s poem of hope in the face of adversity.

Excerpted from Walt Whitman’s long poem, Sea-Drift, this cycle of texts tells of the hopefulness and longing of a lone sea bird, sitting fast upon a nest, whose mate has flown off in search of food and, having met with some disaster, never returned. In “Soothe, soothe, soothe,” the bird calls loudly for its mate, but only imaginesseeingitsshape in the mist. In “Land, Land, O Land,” the little creatureis sure that the land could return its mate “if only you would.” Despair and a presentiment of loss creep into “O throat! O trembling throat!” Losing hope, the nesting bird is quieter, but calls out softly one last time, in “But soft! Sink low!” The final song, “O Darkness! O in vain!”, is a lament for the lost mate, and a tender remembrance of their lifetogether.

1. “Close on Its Wave Soothes the Wave Behind”—The opening open in Whitman’s long poem about love, loyalty and longing.
2. “Land! Land! O Land!”—The second poem in this cycle of love, loyalty, and loss.
3. “O throat, O throat, O trembling throat”—The third song in this cycle about love, loyalty, and loss.
4. “But soft! Sink low!”—The fourth song in this cycle of love, loyalty, and loss.
5. “O darkness, O in vain”—The final song in this cycle of love, loyalty, and loss.